A day before President von der Leyen held her annual State of the European Union address, Insurance Europe has written to the European Commission calling for its forthcoming EU initiative to not only reduce existing reporting requirements, but also to ensure that any new reporting is kept to an absolute minimum, is proportionate, simpler, more consistent across EU regulation, and insurance companies have sufficient time for implementation.
In a letter sent to President von der Leyen’s Head of Cabinet, Michaela Koller, Director-General for Insurance Europe – the European federation of insurance and reinsurance industry - welcomed the initial announcement by President von der Leyen in March earlier this year to simplify and reduce reporting by 25%. With the package expected to be unveiled by the European Commission in the coming weeks, Insurance Europe’s Director-General wrote, ‘we urge the Commission to recognise that this burden is created not only by too many reporting requirements, but also by duplications and overlaps across different pieces of legislation, lack of sufficient time to implement the requirements, as well as lack of clarity and timely provisions of Q&As’
The industry, she said, needed EU reporting to be simplified and consistent across EU regulations that affected the industry, such as Solvency II, sustainability reporting and the upcoming Retail Investment Strategy.
Director-General Koller further wrote, ‘Every new reporting requirement, or change to a reporting requirement, generates the need for IT projects data sourcing, validation processes, and management interpretation and review. This negatively impacts customers, for example through higher costs. It redirects often scarce expertise away from conducting key activities such as risk management or innovation to reporting on them and puts the European insurance industry at a competitive disadvantage internationally’,